The Vocabulary of English

WS 2014 / 15 Raymond Hickey English Linguistics

Introduction

The following presentation is intended to give students an idea of what this course will be about. Basic principles and assumptionsconcerning the vocabulary of English are explained in the following slides and typical concerns of the field can be recognised.

To begin with several reasons for going to this seminar are given and then possible themes for presentations and term papers are discussed.

Several good reasons for going to the present seminar:

1) To find out more about how English words are organised, both in dictionaries and in the minds of English speakers.

2) More particular, to grasp why present-day English organises its vocabulary on different levels and so to be able to remember difficult words better.

3) Further to this, to appreciate and hopefully master the niceties of English style, at least in its lexical aspects.

4) To look at how dictionaries are made and what information is included in them and how this is arranged.

5) To learn about how the vocabulary of English developed in the history of the language.

6) To understand more about the types of sociolinguistic situation which led to different kinds of borrowing in English.

7) To learn more about how the regional and overseas forms of English are structured on the level of vocabulary.

8) To grasp the essential differences between English and German in the area of vocabulary and furthermore to put this in a general perspective in both languages.

9) To improve one's ability to teach the language by looking at different methods for conveying knowledge about vocabulary to pupils/students.

Areas for presentations and term essays

(these areas are quite large and issues within them can be treated separately in different sessions if students wish)

1) The structure of English vocabulary

2) Recent changes in English vocabulary (new words)

3) Word-formation in English, phrases and idioms

4) The vocabulary of American English

5) Regional vocabularies in English (English dialects, Irish, Scottish,Caribbean, etc.)

6) Stylistics and vocabulary

7) Vocabulary and lexicography

8) The teaching of vocabulary

9) History (i): Latin loans in English

10) History (ii): Scandinavian loans in English

11) History (iii): French influence on English vocabulary

12) History (iv): Hard words and the Inkhorn Controversy inEarly Modern English

Two types of lexicon

1) The dictionary

This is what is compiled by individuals and used by others when they wish to (i) know what a translation for a word in one language is, (ii) know what the meaning of a word within a single language is. Dictionaries are usually arranged in alphabetical order, though some are presented thematically or in reverse order, e.g. by the endings of words.

2) The mental lexicon

This is a body of lexical knowledge which each speaker has in his/her head, typically for ones native language, but also for others, if these are present. The mental lexicon is arranged very differently from the dictionary.

Characteristics of the mental lexicon

1) It is arranged by sense relations, typically by word field, but often by oppositions of meaning, e.g. left and right.

2) Retrieval is extremely fast, in fact not measurable, but can be hindered by a mental block.

3) Word are stored in networks of associations, both phonetic and semantic.

4) Words are stored with much connotational information, ultimately derived from the context in which they were acquired in early childhood.

Meaning relationships

Sense

The semantic relationship which obtains between words, e.g. cow calf, bull or horse, mare, stallion are related by sense. (German: Sinn)

Denotation

The relationship between a word and the non-linguistic, outside world. For instance, one could say that the denotation of cup is a small vessel-like object for holding beverages, usually placed on a saucer. The word mug is similar in its denotation, but the object is larger and thicker and not used with a saucer (German: Denotation)

Word fields

A word field is a set of words which are related in their senses. Virtually all our knowledge of language is organised as word fields. Typical word fields from our surroundings would be clothes (shirt, blouse, trousers, slack, jacket, coat), furniture (chair, table, stool, bench), food (meat, vegetables, bread, sweets), utensils of various kinds (knives, forks, spoons), modes of transport (car, lorry, bicycle, motorbike, plane). From our conceptual world one could mention such word fields as mental ability (clever, smart, intelligent, bright; dumb, stupid, silly), motion (walk, run, saunter, trot), feelings (like, dislike, hate, abhor, love, adore, admire), actions (work, beaver, relax, idle).

It is typical of word fields that they subdivide into further word fields, e.g. food can be broken down into many sub-types. Subdivisions are usually determined by some general characteristic, e.g. cooked or raw food, liquid or solid food, with or without meat, dairy products and non-dairy products, etc.

Latin influence on English

Continental Germanic period

Many trade terms stem from the period before the coming of the Germanic tribes to England, e.g. street from via strata the paved way, mile from mil(l)ia passum a thousand steps, cheese from caseus or wine from vinum. Note that all of these loan are also present in German: Strae, Meile, Kse, Wein.

Christianisation period

2) Ecclesiastical terms enter the language with the Roman Christianisation of England from the south as of the end of the sixth century, e.g. monk from monacus or bishop from episcopus.

Latin influence on English

Early modern period

With the expansion in the sciences from the 16th century onwardsmany words enter English from either Latin or Greek (the latter often via the former), e.g. biology, astronomy, geology, geography. Many Latin loans, however, served the function of filling a lexical gap in English, e.g. the adjectives were created where none werepresent in English or which were not stylistically neutral, e.g.equestrian as adjective to horse, marine as adjective to sea, aquatic as adjective to water.

Scandinavian influence on English vocabulary

From about 800 onwards the Vikings came to harass the north of Europe, including the north of England. Initially they came as conquerors, later as settlers. Over the ensuing two centuries or so, the language of the Vikings, Old Norse, had a considerable influence on English, chiefly in Scotland and the north of England. As the Vikings could understand Old English, there was little difficulty in communication and the everyday contact meant that many common words entered English.

The sound shape of Scandinavian words is easy to recognise in present-day English, e.g. sky, skin, skull, skill all with an initial /sk-/. This sequence had become /-/ in the south of England and the phonetic difference led in a few cases to semantically differentiated word pairs from the same Germanic root, e.g. shirt and skirt. A peculiarity of the Scandinavian influence is the complete replacement of many Old English words by the Scandinavian equivalent, e.g. nimon by take, snipan by cut. In some cases there was a semantic narrowing, e.g. Old English steorvan to die became later to starve. In still other cases the general Old English word is only found in a fixed expression, e.g. Old English sweltan to die continues in the phrase sweltering heat. The word die is itself of Scandinavian origin.

French influence on English vocabulary

The French influence on the lexicon of English can be divided into two periods. The first, the Anglo-Norman period, is one of direct influence when there were French speakers from Normandy in England. This lasted from about 1066 to 1204 when the political union with Normandy ceased under King John. The second period, the Central French period, is characterised by an indirect cultural influence due to the high prestige which French enjoyed in England from about 1200 to 1500. Loanwords entered the language from both periods. Those from the first period in general show an older form and have been adapted to the sound system of English more completely. For instance, hostelin an Anglo-Norman loan but hotel is a much later borrowing with the loss of sbefore t and stress on the second syllable. Sometimes two loanwords showthe same root as is the case with catch (from Anglo-Norman) and chase (from Central French). The same is true of cattle and chattel possession. One can recognise here the following phonetic correspondence: word-initial /k-/ with the Anglo-Norman word and word-initial /t-/ with the Central French one. Sometimes the sources of doublets are Central French and Latin, as with royaland regal (both ultimately from Latin rex, regis king).

A singular feature of Central French influence on English is that the words are generally on a higher stylistic level and are more abstract than the corresponding English words. This difference can be clearly seen with word pairs like freedom and liberty, work and labour. In other cases the French word has a slightly different meaning compared with the inherited English word, e.g. ask and demand (French), see and perceive (French).

On borrowing some French words were misunderstood by the English, e.g. pea and cherry result from the final /-s/ being removed from the French source as the English thought these words were plurals, compare Modern French pois and cerise respectively. Other words were segmented incorrectly, e.g. French naperon became apron because the English speakers thought the initial /n-/ was part of the indefinite article an.

French loans into English have continued since the Middle English period. Many of these later loans are recognisable by their sound shape, e.g. they have not gone through the Great Vowel Shift, compare the earlier polite /plait/ with the later police /pli:s/ or gown /gaun/ with rouge /ru:g/ or divine /dvi:n/ with machine /mi:n/. In the last example one can also note /--/ where earlier loans, e.g. duchess, have /-t-/.

Some words may have been borrowed twice (as between the Anglo-Norman and Central French period) with a semantic differentiation, e.g. riskyinvolving risk and risqu slightly indecent or shocking.

Examples of semantic expansion of food at the expense of meat

Examples of semantic expansion of bird at the expense of fowl

Neo-classical compounds

These are heavily represented in English as in other languages, given the necessity to have words for the many technological and scientific developments and objects of the present-day world. These words are formed on the basis Greek or Latin lexical material and can combine freely with English morphemes (themselves often from French) to render new compounds, e.g. biodiversity, geopolitical, hydropower. Some these formations are distinctly colloquial, like mega-cool (with Greek megas great), super-easy (with Latin super above). A random set of further examples would be pulmonary from Latin pulmo lung; cerebral from Latin cerebrum brain; cutaneous from Latin cutis skin; cardiacultimately from Greek kardia heart; sclerosis from Greek skleroun harden; biology from Greek bios human life + Latin -logia form Greek logos word, discourse, amount.

Loanwords from other languages

In the course of its history, English has borrowed words from other languages as well. The European languages, specifically the Germanic and Romance languages (apart from French) are the chief sources. German has supplied such words as kindergarden, zeitgeist, gestalt, schadenfreude, pretzel, sauerkraut; ersatz not genuine. There are also formations in English which appear to be calques on German words, e.g. damage limitation (< Schadensbegrenzung?), own goal (< Eigentor ?). Some borrowings are actually Yiddish and entered American English first, e.g. spiel verbal tactic, strategy, schlemiel stupid, awkward person, schmaltz, schmooze chat, intimate conversation, schlocktrash.

Loanwords from other languages (cont.)

Romance languages have supplied many specific terms, e.g. Italian terms for typically Italian food, consider pasta, spaghetti, tortellini, gnocchi. Spanish has provided various general terms, such as aficionado ardent supporter, infantadaughter of ruling monarch; many Spanish terms have entered through American English given the influence of Spanish via Mexico in the south-west of the United States, e.g. ranch (< Spanish rancho group of persons eating together), rodeo (< Spanish rodear to go around). Slavic languages have provided a few loans, mostly recent ones, e.g. sputnik (< Russian fellow traveller), the second syllable of which has resulted in a general agent morpheme, cf. beatnik.

Of the languages outside of Europe, Arabic is probably the most important for borrowings, e.g. admiral (< Arabic amir commander via Old French and medieval Latin). In many overseas anglophone countries, native languages have provided a wealth of flora and fauna terms such as wildebeestin South Africa, kangaroo in Australia or kiwi in New Zealand.

Types of semantic change

What happens when two words have the same meaning?

1) One of the two is lost

2) The words differentiate in meaning

Sources of two words with the same meaning

1) Borrowing, Old Norse take and Old English nimon

2) Two borrowings from different times wine and vine, catch and chase

3) Two different pronunciations, e.g. standard and dialect as in person and parson

Similarity in form and meaning, 1

Homophone Any set of words pronounced the same way, e.g. English poor and pour /po:/ (Received Pronunciation) and German Ferse and Verse. (German: Homophon)

Homograph Any two (or more) words which are written the same, though the pronunciation may be different, e.g. lead, a verb, and lead, a noun. (German: Homograph)

Homonym Any set of words which share their form but have different meanings, e.g. bar 'legal profession' and bar 'public house'. The formal similarity is an accident of phonological development and the forms do not share a common historical root, contrast this situation with that of polysemy. (German: Homonym)

Similarity in form and meaning, 2

Polysemy A reference to a word which shows more than one meaning. In such instances one of the meanings is usually basic and the other derived, e.g. foot (part of the body) and foot (base of something) as in atthe foot of the mountain. (German: Polysemie)

Hyponymy A phenomenon which occurs frequently in the lexicon of a language and which denotes the relationship between general and specific words. The specific term is said to be a hyponym of the general one, e.g. violin is a hyponym of strings, tuba is of brass, etc. Those specific elements which are on the same level are called co-hyponyms, e.g. flute, clarinet, oboe in an orchestra. (German: Hyponymie)

Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable 2002. A history of the English language.5th edition. London: Routledge.

Gramley, Stephan 2001. The vocabulary of world English. London: Arnold. Hughes, Geoffrey 2000. A history of English words. Oxford: Blackwell.Grlach, Manfred 2003. Einfhrung in die englische Sprachgeschichte. 5th

edition. English Research Monographs Heidelberg: Winter. Katamba, Francis 1994. English words. London: Routledge. Knowles, Elizabeth 1998. The Oxford Dictionary of New Words. Oxford:

University Press.Lipka, Leonard 1990. An outline of English lexicology. Tbingen: Max

Niemeyer. Pyles, Thomas and John Algeo 1993. The origins and development of the

English language. 4th edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Stockwell, Robert and Donka Minkova 2001. English words, history and

structure. Cambridge: University Press.

Recommended literature